


Turn to Hate

by rmayuscula



Series: Pony AU [1]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Or Slowish, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, yes the whole gang is here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:54:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29948913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rmayuscula/pseuds/rmayuscula
Summary: Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other, but these two might just murder the other.
Relationships: Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince)
Series: Pony AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2202654
Kudos: 4





	Turn to Hate

**Author's Note:**

> Content Warnings: catholicism and christianity, prostitution and what is, in my opinion, misogynistic views of it.
> 
> Loosely historical western AU, and I do mean the 'loosely' lol. Self indulgently influenced by Orville Peck's Pony.
> 
> So, this is actually part of my Berencel manifesto, but for that to happen, Damen and Laurent have to get together first. I'm hesitant to call it an enemies to lovers, since I'm not sure if I could make that trope justice, but I should WARN that Laurent is a bit awful like he was in book one, in different ways. And they will hate eachother for a few chapters, you know, the usual when a man kills your brother and the man whose brother you murdered tries to make your life impossible.
> 
> It's set around 1850, mostly centered around the Mexican-American conflicts from the 1840s to 1860s because! surprise! I've made Damen Mexican!! Half self-indulgently and half to explore some of his faults, as is his traditionalism, nationalism and obsession with masculinity, in a way that is familiar with what I know. Laurent is still French lol.
> 
> I should also note two things: that there's no homophobia on this AU because that would make it less fun and that Western is incredibly whitewashed, the West was not white and even though this is some silly self-indulgent fic and I'm not American, I understand that this is all set in indigenous people's stolen land, and the horrifying actions at hands of the colonizers. I'm more than willing to share articles and resources with anyone that wants to learn more about the Wild West's history!! Just leave a comment or contact me on tumblr.
> 
> Expect sporadic updates, as this is not pre-written.

It’s early afternoon when he arrives to the town, a pit stop until he reaches the next, until he meets the man he’s got to meet. By the looks he gets, he knows that word about his arrival will spread to all before nightfall. The second Akielos son, the disgraced one, exiled to this side of the pond.

Damen does not bother arranging rooms, he’s not sure that he could tell the hotels and the ones that are a storefront for something else all the way up here, tell apart the subtle codes from the crude ones, they’re different from the ones in the North. Sleeping out in the open is best, it’ll keep him away from trouble, and he’s far enough from the desert that he won’t have to worry too much about the cold. Yes, that’s the best option.

It’ll keep the horses away from greedy hands too, keep them safe. That’s the last thing he needs, someone stealing the dappled stallion he has brought this far to sell. It’s his father’s last, tall and proud, pure Spanish blood. It pains him to have to sell him, he does not care much for horses, but Theomedes had loved them, and this one had been his pride and joy.

But the damned beast is too pretty, too expensive, too useless to be sold easily. Almost no one will buy him, in the West. He would’ve already gotten rid of him, if he were still back home, he would’ve gotten a good price in a couple of days. But he cannot go back down, and this one is not priced horseflesh up here, there are few men who would buy him and Damen needs the money.

Needs it desperately, with what Kastor has done. He needs land, or cattle, or anything that will help put him back on his feet. And he’s sure that this man, the one next town, will buy the horse, he has been assured that he will. Damen prays that he does, because he knows him and he knows that this Berenger will remember him, remember what he did. That’s why he has sent no letter, no notice. So he cannot be turned away before the man looks at the horse, sees it for himself.

He does the sign of the cross at the thought of it, of being left penniless and friendless, in this land that he has not visited for years. He shakes the feeling off as well as he can, focuses on running the errands he’s got to run, buy what he needs to buy before he’s on the road once again.

When he’s done, the sky is dark, full of stars, and Damen doesn’t feel ready to go back to his new loneliness. He walks over to the line of saloons and brewing stores, picks one that seems quiet enough, with a window facing the tying post. It’ll keep him out of trouble, and he’ll be able to watch the horses. He feels the heavy gaze of a couple of men three doors down, hears the whispers. That’s alright to Damen, as long as no one’s rowdy.

He swings the saloon’s door open and takes a step in. He had doubted that he would be kicked out of it, this close to the border and with this particular establishment being rather unsavory, employing a girl, but his eyes are pulled away from her by a group of scowling men sitting at a table in the back, white men.

No such luck, then. One of them, with a head of blond hair, seems especially offended at Damen’s presence. He decides to not dwell on it, as long as the owner does not ask him to leave, he will stay. And the men are few, four of them, he’s confident that he could take them, if it came to that.

Damen walks over to the bar, orders something to drink and before he can tell the girl that he won’t be enjoying her services, whichever this one offers, he feels someone shoving him while shouldering past. It’s the blond man.

He seems somewhat familiar, but that’s the usual for him, he sees Jokaste everywhere now. The man, almost a boy, as he couldn’t be older than twenty, swings in to grab Damen’s glass and throws it at a wall, smashing it to pieces and wetting the floor with the sticky alcohol, knocking others that were resting upon the bar, waiting to be cleaned, while he’s at it. The lady lets out a small yelp at the sudden crash.

He’s clearly wasted, piss drunk, but vicious nonetheless, red-faced with fury.

It angers Damen, that this one would have the audacity to try and stop him, an honest gentleman, from getting a drink. The man spits at his boots with a sneer on his face, and one of his companions snickers.

Before he can do anything about it, another one from the group leads the blond towards the door, while he sputters slurred threats over his shoulder

“I _will_ kill you. You, dumb brute, I’ll kill you.”

He has an accent and Damen catches a glimpse of the expensive leather on the man’s boots. When the yelling fades to a lower volume and he calms himself down from the short encounter, takes in the spurs and saddles decorating the room, the drawing of a naked woman hanging on one of the walls, Damen turns to the lady.

“Who was that?” The barman answers for her, righting a spilled whiskey glass with more force than necessary.

“A Frenchman, some deVere. Now, sir, I must ask you to step out as well,” Damen knows that last name. Shit, and shit again. The man shares his late older brother’s looks. Shit. “I won’t tolerate this kind of behavior in my establishment.” Shit. This is worse than Berenger not buying the horse from him.

\---

Damen will trust deVere’s word. He has no doubt that the man will kill him, if he gets the chance. And death is not part of his plans.

He camps out outside of the town, ties the stallion to one of his legs, so the pull will wake him if the horse is startled by someone coming close. It’ll make for a rude awakening, being dragged around the dirt, but it’s better than someone stalking, shooting him while he’s deep inside of the dreaming world.

It doesn’t matter, at the end. He doesn’t sleep a wink. Laid under the stars, Damen thinks of a soldier’s blue eyes, full of pained tears.

He rises when the sky is starting to turn violet, resigned. Rides a wide berth from the town, afraid of running into the Frenchmen. Berenger’s town is half a day away, he has been told. He feels jittery with nerves, like a spooked colt. It upsets his gelding, which in turn makes the dappled one toss his head side to side, letting out loud snorts. Damen rolls his eyes.

The day is boiling hot, under the dry sun he takes his jacket off and it’s still not enough. The wind burns too, offering no respite. His curls are damp with sweat. A vulture keeps rounding them up in the sky but once again, death is not in his plans. And it’s a single one, it couldn’t be an omen.

It’s nearly midday when he sees the town’s church. It’s not a protestant one, he has always wondered how the Americans make do with their temples built from wood, how they feel God close in that emptiness, how they don’t feel forsaken even without their Mother looking down at them with her sorrowful face. He dutifully crosses his thumb and his index, brushes it up his temple and side to side on his chest, kisses his fingers’ cross gently, when he passes the towers and atrium.

He asks for directions to Berenger’s estate, he’s already hungry but decides that a celebratory meal will taste better, after he sells the horse.

The house sits on a sprawl of dry grass, with the horse barn on the side. Berenger is clearly a rich man, both buildings are stark white, they lack the dusty look that seems to cover every living thing up here. He walks the dirt road to the main house, tries to pat away the sand that clings to the dapple, undoes the braid that keeps his long mane away, takes a handkerchief and cleans the spit that had bubbled up around the bridle’s bit, that had run down the horse’s neck.

A single man greets him, and it’s not Berenger.

“Sir, good afternoon.” It must be some kind of foreman, for the way that he carries himself, “I’m looking for Mr. Berenger.”

“Oh, you just missed him.” He walks up to the stallion, gives him a long pet on the muzzle. “A magnificent beast, isn’t he? We don’t see many of these around here.”

“Excuse me, I missed him?”

“He’s Andalusian, right? Is he trained too?”

“Ah, yes, by a horseman from Puebla.” By the way that this man nods, Damen knows that he has no idea what Puebla is. It had been a big deal in his father’s estate, bringing a poblano all the way up to the North, just so his horses could be more than stock mounts. He remembers Kastor atop of one in the capital, the horse, dark as midnight, cantering around a group of untamed mares and his brother, shining spurs digging in, rope whistling in the air. “I’m sorry, but where is Mr. Berenger? I’m looking to sell this one to him.”

“Good choice, he will love him. Beautifully built, look at that arched neck, and he’s not bulky either, you must see, sir, the atrocities that some gentlemen breed.” Damen doesn’t say anything, he waits until the foreman stops fretting, “He left for Thinfort this morning, sir. He had business there,” Fuck.

“I’ve just come from there; do you know when he’ll be back?” The man shakes his head.

“Not for sure, it’s business with an old friend, might be a few days.” Damen doesn’t think he could take the anticipation; it’s eating him away.

“Then, do you think you could buy him in your master’s name, my friend?” He puts on his most charming smile, the one that used to make enaguas flutter, back at home.

“I wouldn’t dare, sir. It’s not in my power, but you should wait for him, I could offer you a guest room here, I’m sure that Mr. Berenger will be glad for the stallion.” He doubts that Berenger will appreciate his friend’s killer sleeping under his roof, no matter how pretty the horse.

“That won’t be necessary, thank you. I will catch him in Thinfort,”

“Are you sure, sir?”

“Yes, I’m in a bit of a hurry, my friend.” Damen climbs onto his gelding, lets the dappled one follow them at his own pace, lest he throws another tantrum at being pulled around.

“Oh, sir, I didn’t catch your name.” He pretends to not hear him. The last thing that this fool’s errand needs, is another Frenchman sneering at him.

\---

It’s already nightfall when Damen gets back to Thinfort, so tired that he feels like falling asleep right there on the saddle. He caves in and rents a room at the hotel that had seemed the most respectable, he has no qualms regarding the soiled doves, but he has not felt high enough spirits to seek company of that sort. Sleeping in a proper bed might improve his mood, though. And after he sells the horse, he could spare some coins for that too. Damen doesn’t entertain any ideas of tangling himself around a complicated romance, like it would be with one of these American’s demure daughters, or their sons. He has had enough of difficult love to last a lifetime, after all.

He resolves to find Berenger this very night, to prevent another of those sleepless hauntings that seem to plague him these days. But when he walks out of the building, a boy is standing beside the dappled horse, staring intently at it.

“No touching, kid.” The boy turns his face to Damen. His blue eyes sit eerily big on his face, like a witch-owl’s chick. And his manner is frightening as well, not the one of a youth.

“He’s already gone to bed.” His high pitched voice cracks, so he must be older than he looks. He tilts his head to one side, dark curls bouncing. “And he won’t buy it from you.”

It’s terrifying, the way the kid says it, like he’s a thousand years old, like he’s repeating old knowledge, reading it out loud from a carved wall. It chills Damen, even in the windless night, and he looks around to see if he’s imagining the boy, to reassure himself that he’s not an apparition. The dirt street is empty.

The boy turns on his heel, starts to walk away and gives him one last glance over his shoulder. “Laurent might, though.” The name raises every hair in Damen’s body, he remembers it being gurgled out of a soldier’s bloody mouth, repeated again and again like a prayer. The man gasping it out, clutching at Damen’s sleeve, his tearful eyes crazed in the brink of death.

And last night, that man’s brother with his drunken bravado, spitting out threats that had seemed more like vows.

\---

In the morning, Damen feels stupid by having been spooked by some kid. He stares at himself in the hotel room’s mirror, washed and changed and shaved. The sight is unfamiliar now, but this is what he had looked back at home, proud and every bit of his father’s son.

Berenger is astride a shiny black mare when Damen finds him. The man’s gaze focused on the stallion instead of himself, an appreciative look on his face.

“A handsome horse, sir.” He turns to Damen then, and his eyes squint as if trying to place him. He thinks it’s for the best, to make the deal before Berenger recognizes him.

“It is, Andalusian and immaculately trained, brought all the way from the Spain too.” The man smiles then, minuscule, and extends his hand. Damen takes it, victorious, and he grins back.

Until Berenger’s eyes catch on the ring he’s wearing. His father’s signet ring. It’s all he has left: the ring, a useless mount and one of his mother’s embroidered handkerchiefs. The only things that Kastor had let him keep. After the soldier’s, Auguste’s, death, he had sent two letters, one to his family and one to the army. The guilt had been eating him alive, the man had not deserved to die, and Damen had wished he had died in that battle too.

After the war, he had trailed around his father’s land empty eyed. All of his cruelties had been for naught, the States had won, had kept half of the North, had killed those boys, had taken the capital, had taken La Mesilla all these years after.

The man had not deserved to die, he had not even been American, and Damen had frantically written apologies and sent them out, had signed them with his father’s rings. The post had been expensive.

“Ah, I see.” Berenger pulls away, and looks down at him. “I’m sorry, sir, but I wouldn’t be able to give you a fair price.” Shit. He’s clearly lying, and not even trying to hide it. The mare’s bridle is engraved with silver leaf, not ostentatious, but silver nonetheless. Damen remembers this man’s white estate. “I don’t have the funds for it.”

“Mr. Berenger --.”

“No. Thank you, sir, for your consideration.” There’s a sneer on his face now, taunting him. “I must take my leave now, do not approach me again, please.”

He makes a noise in the back of his throat and the mare trots away, kicking up a small cloud of dust. Berenger doesn’t spare a glance back at him, and Damen feels the daunting weight of doom settling onto his shoulders.

What is he supposed to do now? Should he go further up north? Sell the horse there? Go back and grovel at Kastor’s boots, beg like a dog? Push the damned horse down a cliff? Hang himself? What the fuck is he supposed to do? Probably pray, but then what? Divine intervention might just not be enough, in his case. He’s in this strange land, by himself, with nothing to his name, with few coin left.

“I will buy him from you.” He turns around at the voice and its lilting accent. DeVere is standing a few paces behind him. He’s in all black, from boots to cravat, with a wide brimmed hat to match. He must be scorching under the sun. The clothes do not fit this climate, they do fit him well, though. Damen pushes the thought away.

“As an apology for my earlier outburst, sir.” DeVere says and takes off his hat, presses it to his chest with a remorseful look on his face, looking at him through his long lashes. “You must understand, I was rather surprised, and out of my senses.”

Damen doesn’t understand. He loves Kastor, they’re tied by blood, name and bond. But if something happened to him right now, he might thank the heavens, not menace his killer. It’s an evil thought, he regrets the fact that it even crosses his mind. This deVere clearly carries the loss of his brother and here, he fantasizes about harm coming to his own, it’s shameful.

“That won’t be necessary, Mr. deVere, thank you.” His father would roll in his grave if he knew that a Frenchman bought one of his precious mounts and Damen would overlook that in his current situation, as he would have done with Berenger, but this one is different. Theomedes had resented Damen’s epistolary self-penitence.

“I insist, please.” Laurent’s voice is eager and he has a charming half-smile on his face while he pets the dapple, inspects its teeth without even asking Damen, or the horse. It would never let him do that, but the beast seems at peace with the other man’s fingers prodding at its mouth. “I’ll give you a good price for it, and I have a business offer for you, too, sir.”

“You’d buy _this_ horse?” Damen says and tries to make sense why, this probably aristocratic and green man, from the other side of the Atlantic, would want to buy an Andalusian, from the man who murdered his brother, too.

“Yes. I’m a horse breeder, an aspiring one, at the moment.” His blue eyes barely give Damen a side glance, he’s crouched down beside the animal now, dangerously close to its legs. This deVere might be either the stupidest or the most confident man he has ever met. A mind reader, too, because he keeps on with a: “he won’t kick me, sir. Look at how he’s standing, just don’t make any sudden movement, please.”

After some moments, and more prodding, Laurent faces him again. “It is a perfectly good stallion; won’t you sell it to me?” Another twinkle of his eyes and Damen is almost sold himself, but the man senses his hesitation.

“I bear you no ill feeling, sir. I received your letter, years ago, and I do understand, it was war. You granted my brother a battlefield death, an honorable one, in a won war.” The blond says it kindly, nonetheless, the last part makes Damen clench his jaw. “And I’m glad that our paths have crossed, because I do want to make business with you.

I’ve heard about what happened to your land and assets, and I’m willing to lend you the money to buy it back from your brother.”

Damen now has to make sense of that. The boy must’ve been young, and god knows how close he had been with Auguste. The soldier had repeated his name over and over before death, but that does not prove anything. This one is a younger of what’s probably a handful of sons, Damen had never asked for details of the man’s family, just that he had some up in New York, someone had mentioned a child with the name of his last words. And he remembers him glowing, a beacon of light. Laurent probably had resented the soldier, that golden child. Like Kastor had resented him without noticing, until it was too late.

Young and most likely bitter, he truly does not care for what Damen did, at least while sober and when seeking profit.

“In exchange for what?” Damen asks. It is too tempting to be true.

“That you pay me back, of course. That when you do get it back, you’ll allow me some access to your late father’s horses, I’ve heard wonders about them. And a few short months of work, too.” There’s the catch. Damen is sure that Kastor would let him buy some of the estate back, at least what would’ve been his inheritance. And Damen has something that Kastor doesn’t, a son out of marriage won’t make it far in the capital’s good society, and Kastor has always been ambitious. Damen’s favor would make his path easier, they would make up, put what happened behind them. It _is_ tempting.

“I’m not looking for work.”

“Are you not? This horse won’t buy you a patch of land out here anymore, haven’t you heard?” Laurent says, confused look on his pretty face. He has an expressive one too. “They found a gold mine near, and there’s more of them further West. Maybe you could afford one by the East, or the North, but you know how men are around there.

And it is not hard work, I just need someone to guide me out here, it’s foreign land for me and my men.”

“I’m a foreigner too.”

“Are you truly not interested, sir? I have a contract drafted up already.”

Damen considers it with deVere’s blue eyes boring into him, black clothes scorching under the sun. He looks so much like that soldier, with his pained face stained with dirt and blood. How young this man must’ve been when he took his brother away from him, no more than a boy, in his own performance of hubris.

He feels the weight of that debt, the one he has with every saint for daring to make an innocent man a martyr in the name of what, a country that he cannot go back to? It is a country he still loves, where the brother who he misses is, and this Laurent is giving him a chance to return to it.

And that debt, to the soldier himself, with his hand grabbing Damen in his last moments.

“It is honestly easy work, even for you.” That offends him, whatever it means. DeVere does not look like he has worked a day in his life, his pale hands bear some callouses, just as likely to be from horse riding as to be from plucking the strings of a harp. Damen knows he must’ve made a face, because the blond backtracks. “Don’t misunderstand me, sir, we are similar men, are we not? I don’t doubt that you worked under your father, as any son would do, but you do not have any craft or a university education, do you?” He does not. The latter is a complicated matter he does not wish to recall.

“Why not hire a local?”

“I do have bad blood with Americans. Now, could we get out of the sun so you can read and sign the contract?” Laurent says while walking away, leaving Damen to trail after him even when he has not accepted his offer, or given him any sign that he would. He will, though. The man has said nothing but truths.

And if there’s something that Damen wants, it is to go back home, make amends with Kastor, live comfortably once again and be able to see Nikandros. This is his best shot at it, he’ll be back down in the North before the year ends, this way.

He remembers what had been told of the soldier, Auguste, too. That he knows is true, that he had been kind and good-hearted. The apple never falls far from the tree, and this younger deVere seems charitable and gracious, offering Damen both an olive branch and a path out of the tunnel. And how dark the tunnel he’s in is, he’ll give him all the Spanish horses if that’s what he wants.

Laurent walks into a wooden building, it’s empty but for a long table, too many chairs and what must be all of deVere’s men. That child from last night is sat in there too, he looks less creepy in daylight, with a scowl on his face. Damen finds him strange still.

“Jord, will you fetch me my quill?” Laurent says while taking a sheet of parchment out of his jacket. The man, Jord, must be around thirty and he obeys, moving into another room to search for it. “Here, take all the time you need to read it.” DeVere offers Damen the contract, with a gentle smile, “take a seat, too.”

Damen does sit, and he does read the papers thoroughly, as his father taught him. It says everything that Laurent had vowed outside, with what he assumes is a reasonable wage and that he cannot resign before a fifth month mark is over. Reasonable, it will protect these men from someone abandoning them in unknown land, all by themselves.

“Oh, don’t fret over that, I doubt that you’ll work for me for that long.” Laurent pipes in, and answers Damen’s quizzical look. “I pride myself over being time efficient with how I run my errands, complete my tasks, make my arrangements, my business.” That Jord man comes back, sets the quill and ink beside where Damen’s resting the parchment.

He signs it, and he lets out a long breath he must have been saving since Kastor had chased him out of the North. The man that had snickered the night at the saloon raises his eyebrows at him, with a mocking smirk.

Laurent extends his hand and they shake on it, his smile turns a bit crooked at one side, before he pulls his hand away, puts the contract back into his jacket, and a blank look slips on his face, so different from his benign grins.

Without the desperation breathing down on Damen’s neck, he realizes what he’s done, that he might have dealt with a two-faced devil and he remembers a saying from back home. That not everything that shines is gold.

**Author's Note:**

> Drinking game: google how many times a foreign country tried to invade Mexico during the XIX and XX centuries and take a shot for each one of them. Take a shot for how many backhanded insults Laurent said to Damen in a single conversation. Take a shot for every unconscious rich boy thought Damen had, or take a shot for every Niño Héroe (my favorite version of the Battle of Chapultepec is the one where they had gotten the cadets drunk so they would not feel when the Americans killed them, and Juan Escutia drunkenly stumbled and fell down the hill, taking the flag with him).
> 
> I'm obsessed with the idea of Laurent ticking off both the 'charming young man capable of being terrible' and 'terrible young man capable of being charming' character boxes, depending of who you ask. 
> 
> Find me on tumblr as @arsaces-undone (or @rmayuscula).


End file.
